By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
At a press conference this morning, Forrest City Mayor Larry Bryant signed, "with great reservations," a resolution favoring pursuit of a regional airport which would be located between Forrest City and Wynne.
The city council last week voted 7-1 to support the resolution. At that time, Bryant said he believed the council should wait until the Airport Commission got to talk face to face with a representative of the Federal Aviation Administration. Board members had concerns over what would happen to an improvement project at the Forrest City Airport if the city went after a regional facility.
"I sign this resolution with great reservations," Bryant said this morning, "not because of its economic potential 10 to 15 years from now. I sign this resolution because all the elected representatives of Forrest City, on both the St. Francis Quorum Court and Forrest City City Council except one, voted for the resolution, without the consent of the Airport Commission."
Bryant said neither he nor the airport commission were in opposition to a regional airport.
"No, not one commissioner or the mayor, ever represented that they were against a regional airport, but had reservations, and questions that had not been answered to this day," Bryant said. "Questions like, where will it be located, how much money will the City of Forrest City have to pay, and how much will the county pay, since the county is the driving force behind this regional airport." A Transportation Committee has been set up by the county to look into the possibility of a regional airport. Bryant questioned the ethics of the committee.
"The ethics of the county to appoint as the St. Francis Transportation Committee the person (Buzz Haven) who fought and helped to kill most chances of expanding the Forrest City Airport to 5,000 feet is also in question. This (opposition to expanding the present airport) was done when the city had the federal funds to expand with a limited amount of land required, thus saving the government millions of dollars, when compared to the hundreds of acres of land that will have to be taken to build the new regional airport."
He said he figured it would take eight to 15 years to build the regional facility, leaving the airport possibly without improvements for that period.
"The people's representatives have spoken, they would prefer to be the largest city, almost 15,000 people, in the lower Arkansas Delta not to have its own airport," he said. "I hope and pray that this new regional airport will be good for all the people, and the cities that own the present airports are able to continue having safe airports until the new regional airport is completed."
Bill Hays, chairman of the local Airport Commission, was present but did not comment.
A proposal by the state Education Department to increase the number of required course offerings from 38 to 60.5 will be a challenge, but not an unmeetable one, a local administrator said this morning.
Lee Vent, superintendent of Forrest City Schools, said the biggest challenge will be to smaller districts.
"It will be a greater challenge the smaller the district," he said. He said new standards adopted in 1983 had resulted in some consolidations.
Vent said the current 38 required offerings are the core curriculum.
"In Forrest City, I believe there are in the neighborhood of 55 to 57 course offerings," said Vent. "Forrest City has always offered far more than the basic curriculum."
He continued, "It will be a challenge for us to meet all those requirements. But that is part of addressing the Supreme Court decision. It will require a richer curriculum."
The state Supreme Court has ruled that education in Arkansas is inadequate and funded inequitably.
According to the Education Department director, not all the newly-required courses would have to be on site.
''We're not saying, and it is an important distinction, that every high school must offer on site 60.5 courses every year,'' Department Director Ray Simon told the Associated Press. ''We are saying that students at each high school must have access to 60.5 courses every year.''
Simon planned to make the recommendation Monday to the state Education Board. He said he would ask the board to tentatively approve the recommendation and authorize the department to hold public hearings on it before the board takes a final vote, probably in April.
Simon said the increased course requirements would mean higher expenses for some districts as they hire new teachers for courses they hadn't been offering. The higher costs could force some school districts to consolidate, he said, independent of merger legislation based on enrollment that has been proposed by Gov. Mike Huckabee.
But Simon also said the school districts would be given latitude in how they provide the new courses. The bulk of the new requirements would be in career-training, Advanced Placement, fine arts and foreign language courses.
Some of the new courses could be offered with help from local community colleges, technical institutes, vocational centers and neighboring high schools, he said, while others could use distance education -- using telecommunications to beam instruction into a classroom from another locale.
J.M. Edington III, president of the Arkansas Rural Education Association and superintendent of the 211-student Biggers-Reyno School District in Randolph County, said he agreed that state standards need to be tougher. But he was cautious about a minimum of 60.5 high school courses per year.
''There is some question about whether each and every unit is necessary to have a rich curriculum,'' he said. ''Maybe we are overreaching it. Maybe the best place to start is somewhere in between the 38 and the 60.5 units.''
His district offers about 51 courses a year, Edington said.
The district could probably meet more stringent requirements through a combination of distance-education courses and a possible partnership with Black River Technical College in Pocahontas, he said.
Under the department's proposal, high schools would have to offer at least six Advanced Placement courses in which students can earn college credit for high school work. They would have to offer at least two foreign languages and six units of fine arts.
The work force and technical education requirement would go from nine required units to a minimum of 18. Those 18 courses would have to be selected from at least five career fields, such as agriculture, health, education or finance.
Other additions could include applied statistics, calculus, geography, economics, drama, reading and physical science. Schools could choose from anatomy and physiology, zoology or botany.
St. Francis County had an unemployment rate of 7.9 percent during December, up from 7.2 in November but down from the 8.3 percent rate recorded in December of 2001.
According to the figures from the Arkansas Employment Security Department, in May the county had a civilian labor force of 11,800, with 10,875 working and 925 not working. St. Francis County was in a three way tie (with Jackson and Perry counties) for the 13th highest unemployment out of Arkansas' 75 counties.
The highest unemployment was recorded in Mississippi County, at 10.8 percent. Only one other county had unemployment higher than 10 percent in December (Chicot, at 10.6 percent).
The lowest unemployment was 2.3 percent, recorded in three counties -- Benton, Madison and Washington. Twelve counties had unemployment of 4 percent or lower.
Unemployment rates in surrounding counties were as follows:
Cross, 7.1 percent; Crittenden, 6 percent; Lee, 6.6 percent; Phillips,
8.6 percent; Monroe, 7.3 percent and Woodruff, 8.4 percent.
Sunni Dunn, daughter of David and Lorri Dunn of Forrest City has beaten out 35 other dogs and their handlers for first-place honors in the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel category at the Westminster Dog Show in New York City and advances to the Toy group finals tonight.
Dunn won with her two-year-old Spaniel Ch. Rattlebridge Adagio, or "Gio" for short.
The 127th annual competition took place at 11 a.m. today.
Tonight's competition will be aired live at 7 on the USA Channel, locally channel 45 on East Arkansas Video,
Dunn is 14 years old and an eighth-grade student at Lee Academy in Marianna.
The remainder of the show will be aired Tuesday evening on USA.